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Gaza Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2015 8 Comments
Periodically throughout this summer, we are taking a look back at our coverage of the 2014 Gaza conflict. It's important to do this because a relentless propaganda campaign portrays the conflict as initiated and continued by Israel in retaliation for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens by a Hamas-affiliated cell in the West Bank. In fact, the conflict started as a result of relentless Hamas rocket fire into Israel, a topic we recently revisited in Gaza July 8, 2014 – Hamas Rockets Ignite War. On July 10, 2014, CNN reported on the Hamas rocket fire: In this post, we revisit how the ground war started only after Hamas rejected an Egyptian ceasefire proposal, which Israel had accepted. Had the conflict stopped at that point, only a small fraction of the deaths and destruction which eventually were visited on Gaza to try to stop the rocket fire would have happened. Hamas, and it supporters in the West including leading pro-BDS websites which justified and encouraged "the resistance," bear responsibility for what befell Gaza. On July 15, 2014, Hamas formally rejected the Egyptian ceasefire proposal and continued rocket fire into Israel.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 08, 2015 2 Comments
On June 12, 2014, three Israeli teens were kidnapped and murdered in the West Bank by a Hamas-affiliated group. The bodies would be found on June 30. During June, an intensive search was conducted for the teens and the murderers, including the arrest of many Hamas members in the West Bank and a crackdown on its operations. Militants in Gaza fired a total of 62 rockets into Israel during June (even before the kidnapping), and Israel retaliated by targeting rocket crews and militants in Gaza: On June 30, 2014, 16 rockets were fired into Israel by Hamas, leading to more Israeli targeting and a massive Hamas rocket offensive. Hamas or other militants fired over a dozen rockets a day the first few days of July, and then on July 7 as Israel retaliated with airstrikes, the daily count grew to 80 rockets on July 7 and 156 on July 8.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 29, 2015 10 Comments
At least no one got hurt this time. But Gaza Flotilla III was a complete flop. Meant to break Israel's perfectly legal naval blockade of Gaza (more on legality here), designed to stop Iranian shipments of weapons, the flotilla avoided the disaster of Gaza Flotilla I, in which 9 people were killed when they attacked Israeli commandos boarding a ship. This time, when it appeared Israel would prevent the flotilla from getting to Gaza, three of the boats called it off. The main boat, from Sweden but bearing an Israeli Arab lawmaker and the former President of Tunisia, proceeded, and was boarded by Israeli commandos. The IDF posted the following announcement:

Posted by David Gerstman on June 23, 2015 7 Comments
First the good news, the so-called Schabas report, the United Nations Human Rights Council inquiry into last year's war between Hamas and Israel, isn't as bad as its predecessor, the infamous, discredited Goldstone report. But it's still pretty bad. The Schabas report is named for the judge who originally headed it, William Schabas. Schabas stepped down when it was reported that he had done paid work for the Palestinian Authority. Schabas had previously said that he wanted to see Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried for war crimes had to step down when it was clear that he was hopelessly compromised. After he resigned the commission was headed by former New York State justice, Mary McGowan Davis. For the most part media outlets reported that the conclusion of the report is that both sides "may have committed war crimes." There are two problems with this. The first is that it is inconclusive. The second and more serious one is that it put Israel and Hamas, which precipitated the conflict by launching rockets into Israel, on the same level. Rockets fired from Gaza civilian area at Israel

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 21, 2015 18 Comments
Israel has a military blockade on the Gaza strip due to Hamas control which has turned the 40-mile long strip of land into an Iranian rocket base. There are other radical groups there, such as Islamic Jihad and now ISIS-related groups, who also have rockets. Iran could ship vastly larger and more sophisticated quantities of rockets and missiles if it could use ships rather than smuggling tunnels, and it has tried multiple times. This video shows the Karin A vessel seized in 2009, ferrying arms to Gaza through Egypt. Imagine if such ships could dock directly in Gaza, or offload to smaller ships just off the coast. In March 2014, another ship was seized.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 15, 2015 4 Comments
Because I am a glutton for punishment, I read the anti-Zionist Mondoweiss website. I do it, so you don't have to. One of the authors there posted this video put out by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, apparently one in a series, as if it were a bad thing. Seems pretty much on target to me. [NOTE - The video was taken down after furious complaints from the international media, including The NY Times. Here is a version captured by another outfit] This comes, of course, in anticipation of a hit job on Israel by the UN Human Rights Commission in a report to be released this week regarding the 2014 Gaza conflict. In that conflict, the media played a key role in covering up Hamas use of civilians as shields:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 14, 2015 13 Comments
It's too late to undo the massive propaganda campaign surrounding the 2014 Gaza conflict, which Israel called Operation Protective Edge. False statistics about civilian casualties were put out by Hamas ministries and then adopted without question by the UN, "human rights" groups, and the media to create the narrative that "most" or "almost all" or the "vast majority" of deaths were civilian. Critics of Israel have yet to explain how Israel was supposed to stop Hamas from firing rockets, tunneling under the border, or landing commandos by sea without firing into the civilian areas from which Hamas was operating. During the 2014 Gaza conflict, we covered the deliberate Hamas tactic of firing from civilian areas (including those next to hospitals and apartments,) as well as how Hamas used the main Gaza hospital as a military headquarters. Almost all of this was covered up by the media: http://youtu.be/Nu-e5qWXx-k Round two in the propaganda war against Israel will take place this week, when the U.N. Human Rights Council releases its report on alleged Israeli war crimes. The UNHCR is the body completely obsessed with Israel.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 31, 2015 6 Comments
Our journey off the usual tourist trail through Israel continued today with a visit to border areas near Gaza. Sderot is famous for being the closest Israeli town to Gaza, and the first and most frequent target. The Sderot Media Center has a wealth of information. Sderot Satellite Map North Gaza Because Sderot is so close, the town has only 15 seconds warning once a launch is detected. This video is from 2008: There are bomb shelters everywhere, including on the street (see Featured Image - "Shalom" painted on a bomb shelter) and in the playground, where the bomb shelter is in the form of a large caterpillar so as to make it more welcoming to children.

Posted by Mirabelle Ward on May 17, 2015 20 Comments
In November of 2012, the UN voted 138 to 9, with 41 abstentions, to recognize a state of “Palestine” in the West Bank and Gaza.  There was no requirement that such "state" cease terrorism, its violence and hostilities towards its neighbor Israel, even recognize Israel for what it is and what it was always intended to be, a Jewish state. What shocked me at the time was not the outcome of the vote, but that fact that, except for the Czech Republic, every single member of the EU either voted in favor or abstained. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech preceding the vote, referring to Israeli “aggression” rather than defense in Gaza, and claiming to want peace despite having rejected a far-reaching peace proposal only four years prior, was mendacious from the first sentence to the very last applause line. How was it, I wondered, that the European nations were unable to see through his charade?

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 13, 2015 6 Comments
Much of the war against Israel is fought in the media and through deceptive "Non-Governmental Organizations" which issue endless distorted reports against Israel. There hardly is any pretense of objectivity anymore -- there is an attempt to tie Israel's hands when dealing with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah which strategically use civilians as shields. In Gaza, the media was intimidated by Hamas, and maintained a near-silence about the use of the main hospital in Gaza as a Hamas headquarters, and the firing of rockets from near schools, apartments and hospitals. But a few reports leaked out and some reporters admitted to the distorted reporting after leaving Gaza: http://youtu.be/Nu-e5qWXx-k This media war is important because one side (Hamas, Hezbollah) uses media outrage as a strategic weapon to shape the physical battlefield.  And biased, agenda-driven NGOs and media organizations are part of the plan. The lastest distortion, which has received wide play on anti-Israel websites and on Facebook, was issued by "Breaking the Silence."

Posted by Miriam Elman on March 29, 2015 7 Comments
In a few days the world’s Christians and Jews will celebrate Easter and Passover. It’ll be a weekend of good food (and at my seder, plenty of good Israeli wine)—but most of all it’ll be an affirmation of freedom and faith, an expression of joy, hope and renewal. But for many people across the planet it’ll be an opportunity to indulge in a bit of Jew-bashing. Brace yourself as the planet’s anti-Semites engage in their annual rite-of-hate, when the internet will soon become awash in the crazy notion of the blood libel. It’s a centuries-old mad idea that Jews kill gentile children for making matzo, the unleavened bread that’s eaten during the Passover holiday. As Lord Jonathan Sacks, emeritus Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, and one of the leading intellectuals of our time, recently wrote in an important article on the resurgence of global anti-Semitism (it’s behind the Wall Street Journal paywall, but his remarks are also captured in this CNN interview):
The idea [of the blood libel] is absurd, not least because even the tiniest speck of blood in food renders it inedible in Jewish law.”
As explained by Sacks, the libel was an English invention, originating in Norwich around 1144. It was introduced into the Middle East in the 19th century, where it helped instigate the targeting of innocent Jews in Lebanon and Egypt (and, most famously, in Syria with the Damascus trials of 1840). This violence and hatred against Jews happened decades before the first wave of persecuted European Jewish refugees arrived in pre-state Israel seeking refuge in their ancient homeland. Zionism didn’t provoke it.

Posted by Miriam Elman on March 24, 2015 5 Comments
Between July 17 and August 5 of2014, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) destroyed 32 tunnels in Gaza — 100 kilometers of concrete-lined and accessorized passageways dug deep beneath the earth’s surface with openings near Israeli homes and kindergartens. Hamas murdered dozens of the nearly 900 diggers in its employ, fearing that they might reveal the tunnel locations to the advancing Israeli army. This vast tunnel project, estimated to have cost some $90 million, was designed to dispatch an invasion force of thousands. In one of the tunnels the IDF found half a dozen motorcycles which would’ve been used to ferry terrorists into Israel, and bring Israeli hostages out. Hamas Gaza Tunnel NYT video These lesser known facts, and hundreds more, are compiled into a new report on the 2014 Gaza War, released last week by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), an Israel-based think tank headed by Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the UN who also served as an advisor to PM Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term in the 1990s. A must-read document, written by the JCPA’s team of legal, military, media, and diplomatic experts, it details what really happened in this war that Israel never wanted, and the disaster that it miraculously averted. Warning: the document is long and dense; it’s not something you can cover in an hour, or even a day. But it’s well worth taking the time to read. The document includes hundreds of hyperlinks to relevant sources and video clips. There’s one of Hamas calling for Israel’s destruction, and another of terrorists infiltrating Israel.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on March 04, 2015 2 Comments
British street artist, Banksy, recently visited Gaza. According to Mashable, this was not his first trip:
The Palestinian territory is not a new base for the British graffiti artist; in 2005 he made headlines for his art on Israel's West Bank barrier. There were nine images in total, including one work with a girl attempting to float over the wall holding balloons, one of children playing on the sand with a hole above them showing a beach in the wall, and another of a dove with an olive branch and a bullseye on its chest.
Far from politically conservative, much of Banksy's art rails against corporations and the wealthy, is anti-war, and pretty much diametrically opposed to any political view I have. His Occupy-like sympathies aside, Banksy is incredibly talented. If only he used his talents for good, rather than wasting them on anti-Israel propaganda...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 08, 2015 19 Comments
Hey, remember when Hamas was lobbing thousands of missiles at Israeli cities, trying to kidnap people, and killing when they got lucky? Of course you remember it. It has happened every couple of years since Hamas took over Gaza. And before that, the Palestinians strapped bombs on their loved ones and sent them to blow up restaurants, supermarkets, buses, and anything else they could sneak into. And before that .... But always the question is whether Israel's response is proportionate, like pointed out in this Al Jazeera column:
... on June 26, [2014] the UN Human Rights Council deliberated on the situation in Palestine and other Arab-occupied territories. During the deliberations, the council issued a warning to Israel that there may be serious repercussions as a result of its campaign against the Palestinian people, which constituted a continuing violation of international humanitarian law, following the abduction of three Israeli teenagers.
EU leaders on Gaza: 'Israel has right to protect itself but it must act proportionately':

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 07, 2015 4 Comments
Going through some old bookmarks I never wrote about, I found Israel’s Fair-Weather Fans, an August 7, 2014, NY Times Op-Ed by Shmuel Rosner. The column is a rebuttal to liberal Jewish American critics worrying about the alienation of liberal American Jews from Israel. It seems relevant today, as some Democrats put Barack Obama's alleged hurt feelings ahead of the legitimate security concerns of our friends, from Israel to the Gulf Arab states, over Iranian nuclear and regional ambitions:
Two prominent black Democrats in the House of Representatives are vowing to skip Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress next month, a move that a White House insider says was put in motion by the Obama administration. John Lewis of Georgia and G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina both said Friday that they disapproved when House Speaker John Boehner invited the Israeli leader to address a joint session of Congress on March 3 without consulting President Barack Obama first.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 09, 2015 8 Comments
The attack by radical Islamists at the Paris Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket left four hostages dead, plus one of the gunmen. The Hyper Cacher supermarket attack appears to have been coordinated with the two men who killed 12 at Charlie Hebdo. The specter of widespread anti-Semitism on the streets of Paris is nothing new. It has been fueled not only by centuries-old hatreds, but by the more modern Islamist, "anti-Zionist" and BDS movements whose hatred of Israel is obsessive and dehumanizing. Below are a couple of videos from the assaults on Jewish sections of Paris and a Synagogue during "pro-Palestinian" riots last summer over the Gaza conflict. See also several of my posts (some of the videos in the posts have gone bad):

Posted by David Gerstman on October 03, 2014 10 Comments
The lead article in the October issue of Commentary by Omri Ceren is Yes, Israel Won in Gaza. Ceren's central premise is that Hamas built a huge terror infrastructure including tunnels, an enhanced rocket arsenal and specialized training for its terrorists, but "[a]ll of it was gone by mid-August." Hamas' plans for a spectacular terror attack against Israel and a coup against Fatah in the West Bank similarly were stymied. But what really grabbed me about the article was his description of the escalation:
In Gaza, Hamas radically escalated what had been, since the beginning of the year, a steadily increasing stream of rocket fire. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon had declared in January that Jerusalem would “not tolerate rocket fire” and that the “IDF and other security forces will continue to chase after those who shoot at Israel.” February saw more rockets and a large bomb planted on the border. In March, Hamas fired its heaviest rocket barrage since the conclusion of Israel’s 2012 incursion into Gaza—but then the fire steadily decreased throughout April and May.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 23, 2014 10 Comments
Remember when Katie Zavadski of NY Magazine, Sheera Frenkel of Buzzfeed and Jon Donnison of the BBC reported that Hamas was not behind the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens, Gil-ad Shaer, Naftali Fraenkel and Eyal Yifrach? That gave rise to the widespread false meme that Israeli invented the Hamas connection in order to start the Gaza war (never mind that the Gaza war actually was started and continued due to Hamas rocket fire on Israeli cities, not by Israeli reaction to the kidnapping). Since then, Hamas representatives repeatedly have admitted it was a Hamas operation. Indeed, they bragged about it, though Hamas denies that the most senior Hamas officials were involved. Israeli spokesmen not only identified the murderers, but also how they were funded and coordinated by Hamas operatives in Gaza and Turkey. Israel has been searching for the two murderers for several months. Israel finally found them last night in Hebron. After a firefight, the two were killed and Hamas, once again, admits they were Hamas operatives, as The Times of Israel reports:
Marwan Kawasme and Amer Abu Aysha were both killed during an early Tuesday arrest attempt in Hebron, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.... At around 3 a.m., the forces descended on the house where the suspects were believed to be hiding and began firing heavily on the home. Both were killed after refusing to surrender. “We opened fire, they returned fire and they were killed in the exchange,” IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told Reuters. “We have visual confirmation for one. The second one, we have no visual confirmation, but the assumption is he was killed.” Hamas confirmed in a statement the two were killed, Israeli media reported. “Two members of the Izz A-Din al-Qasam brigades, Marwan Kawasme and Amer Abu Aysha, were killed after a journey of sacrifice and giving,” Hamas spokesman Hussam Badran said in a statement. “This is the path of resistance and we walk it side by side.” An armed bulldozer was also used to destroy the home the two were in during the operation, Israel’s Channel 10 news reported.
The Jerusalem Post further reports:
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